Water Joy
finding touch-points & hope in the midst of chaos
“A [person] can not step in the same water twice, because it is not the same river, and [that person] is not the same [person]” they once were.
- Heraclitus
My toes, touch-points, kiss.1
13 Tons of Love flow around and between.2
Every day, I wonder how there can be such joy and beauty in the midst of chaos and sorry…and how, exactly, these images and words fit into it all...
…and always light, color and texture beckon.
“Each and every one of you has a role to play. You may not know it, you may not find it, but your life matters and you are here for a reason.” - Jane Goodall
Thank you, Jane, for this reminder and encouragement, because it all feels like such a puzzle at times. 3
Every day, it seems, I am changed by the all of it…but especially the glorious process of creating these small visual poems for you.
“You’re on the right path,” say the trees, leaves and wondrous river at the end of the trail.
As always, thank you for sharing your time and this space with Lilly and me.
With gratitude for you being you,
Lyn
And please share your thoughts - - It’s wonderful to hear your reactions to these images and words!
Have you ever done In-Camera double exposure? It invites pause, for sure. To create this image, I framed my standard aerial view of my toes, then turned the camera around 180 degrees and reframed the image to first toes touched the toes in the second photograph created from the same perspective as the first. So fun. I use my FujiFilm X100f street camera for these because it is small and easily manipulated.
It was 11:15am, Sunday. We’d just finished yet another soul-filling gathering at North Chapel with the Reverend Dr. Leon Dunkley guiding us into this month’s theme: Anger Harnessed for Strength.
I am grateful for these touch-points, these interactions intended to cultivate a relationship, whether in a chapel on a Sunday morning or when on a walk. It’s been almost a year since we moved to Vermont and the tree trunks, ravine, path and rocky shores of the Ottauquechee River welcome me and seem glad that I am here, just as al those people welcomed on Sunday morning. New rituals. New waters flow.
And after I created this image, my friend, the person who first invited me to this gathering place, came and joined me in the river and we caught up about old friends we both once knew in high school. Touch-points. Finding them and sustaining them matters.
Jane Goodall died last week. I’ll never forget hearing her speak at the Baltimore National Aquarium in 1999. She gave us reasons for hope then and she continues to give reasons for hope now, even after she is gone. I read Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey cover to cover.
At the time, I was grateful to read an honest account of how we got ourselves into our current consumptive predicament and although it took me almost a decade to tap into the spiritual awakening she invited, hearing her speak and reading her words planted a seed. Thank you, Jane.
So this past week I needed to be grounded. Whether because of the full moon or erratic weather or the state of the world or Jane’s death, I was stuck in a cold and dark whirlpool - - water’s more sinister side - - wondering, as I do sometimes, about my purpose and the value of my work.
To counter those feelings, I took another cold dunk in the river and understood that my role, my value, keeps evolving, but it’s clear that sharing unexpected and vibrant kaleidoscopes of form and color lift me and others up when down.
So I keep showing up. Paying atttention to touch-points: ReReading passages from Reason for Hope, photographing my feet and enjoying what they’re up to and where they’ve been - - Literal touch-points…grounding against the whirlpool’s foreboding.